


Stress Fractures

by bearonthecouch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Depression, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Health Screening, Post-Ishval War, post-deployment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 02:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16358930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearonthecouch/pseuds/bearonthecouch
Summary: Riza wants to point out that she’s not the one waking up screaming, drinking enough to dull the sharp edges of terror and guilt every night. Ishval hit Roy so much worse than it hit her. Didn’t it?





	Stress Fractures

“I don't need a shrink,” Riza demands, as she sits across the desk from the man with an infuriatingly kind smile despite his military uniform.

“It's standard procedure, you know that.”

She shrugs. If the military cared about her feelings, they wouldn't have sent her to Ishval.

But Riza Hawkeye follows orders. She can take care of herself, but if every returning veteran of the Ishvalan conflict is getting a psych eval, she’ll sit in this room until Command believes her when she says she's fine.

The doctor leans forward, trying to get a better read on this girl, 19 years old and with a stellar combat record, isolated from her peers and pretty much everyone else.

Riza sits in her uncomfortable chair and says nothing. But in her head the images linger: A dead child buried beneath her hands. More of them falling to her bullets, little explosions of blood and pulp as their bodies fell into the sand, staining it red. The sounds of the rifle blasts kept her awake, echoing in her head long after she returned to camp and tried to ease down from the adrenaline high that kept her going through the hellishly long days. What right did she have to complain, anyway, when she was shooting innocent people every day?

And the military psychologist watches the way she avoids eye contact, the tension in her body, the uneven quality of her breathing.

“Do you have trouble sleeping?” the doctor probes gently.

“No,” Riza says. She doesn't. She can fall asleep whenever she wants to and stays asleep until it's time to wake up. If that often equates to only two or three hours a night, does that count as trouble?

“Are you finding it difficult to get along with family and friends?”

“No.” She doesn't have a family, and she can count on one hand the number of people she’d consider friends. Most of them stayed behind when she got shipped to the war. It's not difficult to get along. They never see each other. Riza can manage to keep up conversation when they call. But only Rebecca has, and Riza never tells her anything about what it was really like in Ishval.

“Do you think about dying?”

“I'm a soldier.”

“Do you think about hurting yourself?”

Her silence speaks volumes, but after a few seconds, she shakes her head. She doesn't. But… she is used to pain, and fear, and loneliness. And when the pain her father wrote into her skin was used to destroy a whole nation while she watched, she channelled her fear and rage and guilt into the controlled and methodic cruelty of being a sniper. And she knows that she deserves whatever pain she feels. But she's too conditioned for survival to hurt herself, and the worst pain she ever felt was inflicted by someone else. Even if she told him to do it.

“Do you think about hurting others?”

“I'm assuming you're not talking about Ishvalans.”

The doctor sighs heavily, settling back into his chair. “I'm trying to help you.”

Riza thinks about crying at the nameless Ishvalan child's makeshift grave, swallowed by the pointlessness of it all. She remembers the screaming matches she had with Roy, trying to push the blame and the guilt onto him because it was all too big for her. The raging inferno that swallowed the horizon stung like a needle against her spine, digging deeper while she cried through clenched teeth, drawing blood. Riza would not look away from the fire. She sat on the barricades that ringed the Amestrian camp, and every breath she took seared through her lungs. The smoke choked everything out for miles; the Amestrians weren't spared from the effects of the orders they gave. The ashes of the dead swirled in the desert winds. There was no escaping it. Roy would stumble back into camp, well on his way to drunk, and Riza would pummel him as though she could somehow make him admit that Flame Alchemy’s permanent legacy was his choice, not her fault.

“I don't need help,” Riza says aloud. “I'm fine.”

The doctor makes a few more notes in what she assumes is her file, and then he closes the folder. Just like Riza thought. She’s just one tiny piece in the big machine, and he’ll get her out of here as quickly as he can to start again with the long queue of men after her.

But the doctor doesn't immediately send her on her way. Riza watches him as he fidgets with his pen. He lets several long seconds pass by, while Riza sits there and matches his silence with her own. Finally, he sighs and then looks up at the closed door beyond which his next appointment is certainly waiting. He makes a decision.

“Your service record is almost unbelievable. The people of this country are lucky to have someone like you protecting them. I’m sure you’ll have a bright future in the military, Warrant Officer Hawkeye.”

Riza frowns. This kind of open praise still makes her suspicious. But she nods. “Thank you, sir.”

* * *

Lieutenant Colonel Mustang glances up the minute Riza steps into his office. “Okay?” he asks her, softly.

She nods, tempted to close the door but knowing better. That's how rumors get started, the kind that could get them both in trouble, but Roy even more than her. She stands just inside the door instead, pointedly in full view of anyone who might walk by.

Roy doesn't even have to say anything else, for his concern to be obvious. Riza wants to point out that she’s not the one waking up screaming, drinking enough to dull the sharp edges of terror and guilt every night. Between the two of them, he’s the one that’s more likely to fail the psych eval. Or are State Alchemists exempt from that, like they’re exempt from so many other things? Ishval hit him so much worse than it hit her. Didn’t it?

It feels like Roy can see through her. She’s more frightened of him than she is of any military doctor. If he can see through the cracks in her armor, he’ll lose his faith in her ability to keep him safe, won’t he?

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been taking care of you since I was nine,” she insists. “I’m not planning to stop now.”

He smiles at that, and a little bit of his worry melts away, and Riza breathes a little easier.

“I promise, Roy,” she says calmly. “I’m fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know the post-deployment mental health screening is a relatively recent addition to military history, but so is women in front line combat, and Amestris has that. #ArtisticLicense


End file.
